MARTIN O'Neill praised Milan Baros for his best 45 minutes in a Villa shirt under the Irishman's management after the Czech striker came to life in the second half at Old Trafford.

MARTIN O'Neill praised Milan Baros for his best 45 minutes in a Villa shirt under the Irishman's management after the Czech striker came to life in the second half at Old Trafford.

Baros provided Gabriel Agbonlahor with his first goal since October and generally put himself about after a dismal first half for both him and his team-mates.

It was Baros' 50th appearance for Villa following a £7million transfer from Liverpool 18 months ago and will have done his chances of a swift move away from Villa Park no harm at all. O'Neill was pleased with his contribution.

"Milan Baros played very well indeed, and had probably the best 45 minutes since I've been here," he said.

The manager will now be looking for five-goal Agbonlahor to go on a run after breaking his long goal drought.

"Gabby's goal should help him," he said. "I think it's exceptionally difficult to play centre-forward in the Premiership.

"You look at the players in opposition - these are seasoned, international players of fantastic calibre.

"You have to try to learn these things and Gabby, like the rest of the young lads, has loads to learn. But it's 'needs must' and it's our idea to try to get as much help for these lads as possible.

"I don't just mean the younger lads - I'm talking about the older professionals as well."

Villa have gone 12 games without a win since the 1-0 success at Everton at the beginning of November.

Five draws and seven defeats have hurt both pride and confidence and O'Neill insists they must be ready for the fight when relegation strugglers Watford come to Villa Park on Saturday.

"It's a long time since we've won a game - longer than we'd have imagined or wanted.

"We've got a 15-match season ahead of us starting on Saturday and we've got to be absolutely ready for that."

O'Neill was furious with his defence for gifting Manchester United their three first-half goals.

"We were pretty poor defensively for the goals - it was novice defending," he said. "You don't want to concede, but against Manchester United, you would at least want them to work for the goals and it didn't happen, so whatever gameplan we had exploded within 10-15 minutes."